One Trick Ponies
by Strapless
Summary: A collection of drabbles, distinctly themed around the Queen's Riders.
1. Before the Fall

**Disclaimer: **It's probably quite clear that I have no ownership claims to the characters, world, etc. I'm simply playing in the world Ms. Pierce created.

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammy-drabbles, prompt #42 – "firsts."

"**Before the Fall"**

_They say it takes a few good falls to make a rider._

--- --- ---

"All right. Get on."

The look Miri turned on her would have rivaled a deer's, caught in the hunter's sight. "But I never—"

The girl caught the saddle full in the stomach. Her hands flew out, luckily grabbing fistfuls of mane. Buri let go of the trainee's leg—ever so useful a body part for unprecedented boosting—and it groped around before catching in a stirrup. Then the other swung up and over, dragging awkwardly across the pony's rump. When the animal shifted its weight the girl flinched, but she held on with a grim set to her mouth. She pushed herself into sitting upright.

"Right. Both feet in the stirrups? Good. Pick up the reins, keep your butt in that saddle, and you'll be fine as long as you remember everything I told you."

With that last instruction, Buri gave the pony a hearty slap on the hindquarters. The gods-be-damned beast flung its head up, tucked its haunches under itself, and jumped off with a squeal loud enough to wake the dead. She watched the retreating behind of the pony for a moment before looking down at the girl, sprawled and scowling, in the dirt at her feet.

She sighed.

"We have a lot of work to do."

--- --- ---


	2. Perfect

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammy-drabbles, prompt #45 – "tabula rasa."

**"Perfect"**

_Onua puts her fresh start on life in perspective._

--- --- ---

Slick as silk, soft as velvet, fine as down feathers, she ran her hands over and around and across. A little stub of a nose reached out, searching, finding. Pink gums latched on, tugged experimentally. A small bottlebrush of a tail flipped furiously with success. A tiny hoof stamped, impatient. New muscle and baby fuzz quivered with eagerness.

The vibrancy of new and untainted life hummed straight from that little body through to her hands. Such perfection, such a marvel, this innocence. She had forgotten what that felt like, this unblemished canvas of hope awaiting the future. Who was she to put a mark upon it, to expose that perfect little life to the cruelties of the world? Perhaps it was selfish, clinging to this living, breathing representation of what she missed most of old Sarain, of the tribes, of home, but Horse Lords help her, this was something that felt right for the first time in a long time.

"I know it isn't much of an offer right now, but I'm sure we can turn it into something better."

For the first time since she'd found her way to Tortall, Onua smiled. She shook her head, cradling the suckling mountain pony closer. Milk dribbled from the makeshift mare's teat like the thoughts of a happy future that she finally let leak into her mind once more, and she told Thayet, "It's perfect."

--- --- ---


	3. Laying Claim

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammydrabbles, prompt #62 – specific prompt #2: "Two characters meet again after some time apart. One is feeling some sort of strong emotion, and the other is thoroughly oblivious of it."

"**Laying Claim"**

_There was only one situation in which Miri stood to gain and cared little for what others lost._

--- --- ---

"You don't remember me, do you?"

Miri spared a glance from the girth strap she was tightening to look sideways at the woman. A rather lovely—if pale—face, delicate hands clasped tightly into the folds of her fine dress, artfully coiffed hair, and a surprising air of determination that wasn't holding up too well. She looked like a noblewoman, and one set on a confrontation that only now did she realize might have been a bad idea. Perhaps a stable wasn't where she had imagined the verbal duel to take place.

Miri wasn't about to disabuse her of that notion. She looked back to her saddle. "Am I supposed to remember you?"

From the corner of her eye she saw that perfect red mouth part as though affronted by a terrible insult. She considered feeling bad about being so rude, but she was also fast approaching the only reasonable conclusion as to why a lady would track her down to the Rider stables.

"I was," the lady paused, searching for the appropriate word, "…close to Ev—Commander Larse."

Ah, there it was, as expected. Miri didn't miss the slip.

"Many women were close to Commander Larse," she replied carelessly, giving the strap a solid tug that snapped loudly in the quiet stable, and took a little perverse delight in the lady's jump.

When she looked at the other woman, she saw that finely bred face fighting back—what? Anger? Tears? Miri saw it now, a face that blended in with the memory of so many others. Aged, perhaps, but hellfires, so had she and everyone else in the world.

When the lady spoke, it was strained. "He left me. He was mine once, and he left me. For you."

Miri felt her eyebrows rise and a sardonic smile crooked her mouth. She led her pony past the noblewoman, only pausing on her way out to inform her, "He was always mine."

--- --- ---


	4. Fare Thee Well

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammy-drabbles, prompt #65 – "So long, and thanks for all the..."

**"Fare Thee Well"**

_It's not a special occasion for the Riders if there isn't a loss of decorum._

--- --- ---

The table swayed only a little when he climbed onto it. Straightening to his full height, Evin raised his glass, eyeing both the sloshing wine in his own and those at his feet.

"And lastly to my group, the lovely ladies and gallant gentlemen I have had the pleasure of leading these many years past, through peril most dangerous, danger most thrilling, thrills most victorious, victories most glorious, glories most—"

"Don't forget all the women!"

He set his jaw briefly and carried on. "Glories most celebrated—"

"Yes, getting stuck in that swamp down south was worth a party," someone else added acerbically, sparking more titters among the entire assemblage of the Queen's Riders.

With a pointed clearing of his throat, Evin hoisted his glass higher. "To my group of fearless Riders, I say so long, and thanks for—"

The mess hall exploded in sudden laughter. Evin looked down at his chest at the splat of something both noxious and unidentifiable that had come from the direction where his former group was seated. Very calmly, he lowered his glass and took a rather large gulp while the cheers died down. He raised it for what he was determined to make the last time, hoping this wasn't a sign of what was to come during his tenure as Commander.

"So long and good riddance, you thankless litter of curs!"

--- --- ---


	5. The Price of Command

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammy-drabbles, prompt #77 – "exception to the rule."

**"The Price of Command"**

_Nothing's free, but some prices are worth paying._

-- -- --

For once in his life, the boy looked like he was about to piss his pants. It was nice to know she still had the ability knock 'em down a few pegs. Put a few years' worth of work into 'em, polish them up, give the lad (or lass) some command of their own, and turn 'em loose on the world hoping they make it a better place than when they were thrust upon it.

And just when they get comfortable, drop a load of blazebalm on them and watch 'em burn. Figuratively, of course. They ought to be good enough by now to dodge actual airborne missiles without her help.

"Are you positively, absolutely, without a doubt—"

Buri reined her pony to a stop and a turned a look on the boy. _Man—must stop doing that_, she corrected herself.

"Don't make me ask twice, Larse. I was second in command to Thayet long enough to know that this is a job I can't handle on my own. At best you get to throw the title around at parties and at worst I make you push papers all day long."

"What about the bit where you retire in the far, far, far distant future?"

"About that."

Evin wheeled his pony around to face hers. "To reiterate: are you _sure_ you want me to—"

"For the Horse Lords' sake, boy, I asked myself that question a thousand times and still decided to make you assistant commander!"

"Oh."

She held up a staying finger. "On one condition, Larse. If—" Pause. Sigh. Correction. "_When_ you succeed me as Commander, I want you to make Miri your assistant. I'm giving her command of the Seventeenth, and I want her there keeping an eye on you when you take over the Riders."

Buri had the unique experience of seeing a Player that had nothing to say.

It was a short lived silence. "That's—can you—is that allowed?"

"I'm Commander, I can order whatever the blazes I want. That is an order, by the way. It's Miri as your assistant or nothing. Is there a problem with that?"

"Possibly," he responded reluctantly, avoiding her gaze, looking instead at the scenery in the vicinity of his pony's hooves. "People will talk."

She snorted. "People always talk. Look at it this way: I'm making this easy on you. You don't even have to think about whether it's right or wrong or infringes on propriety. Miri deserves the position, no matter who she spends her free time with, and that's nobody's business outside the Riders. You get what you want and I get what I want. It'll be issued as my last order to you as your Commander. What do you say to that, Larse? Do you accept?"

A slow grin spread on Evin's face. He straightened in his saddle and snapped an off-center salute. "I accept, Commander ma'am!"

Buri nudged her pony back into action. "Just don't get cheeky with the increased sense of power, that's all I ask."

-- -- --


	6. Improbable

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammy-drabbles, prompt #81 – "crackfic."

"**Improbable"**

_Fandom overlap happens with enough rationalization. __(I'm good at rationalizing.)_

-- -- --

"Impossible. Absolutely impossible."

"Improbable, actually." The response was muttered, half-distracted, as though out of habitual correction.

"Look, I've heard all the stories and myths there are. Dolphin-speakers, ship-eaters, Wave Walkers—"

"Have ye, eh? Then what explains me?"

Miri felt her teeth grind together. "I'm going to go with massive trauma to the skull leading to delusional tendencies and distortion of reality."

The only response she received was one eloquently arched eyebrow and a brief glimmer of gold. A sea-calloused finger tapped the map. "Tell me what these are."

"The Copper Isles."

"And this?"

"Carthak. Ring any bells?"

"Not even a gentle tinkling, love."

"I've told you! No cursed gold, no skeletons by the light of the moon, no ships that sail beneath the waves, no East What's-it Trading Company. Just mermaids and krakens and dolphin-speakers and Wave Walkers."

He rested an elbow across the table and raised his eyes from the map to give her a look that quite clearly questioned her sanity. "Now who's talking nonsense? If what I believe is true and what ye believe is true, then which one of us is right here?"

Miri leaned forward pointedly. "Who's world are we living in, hmm?"

"That's a matter of perspective."

"You, Jack Sparrow, are a liar and a rogue."

Another glimmer of gold. "Pirate," he qualified.

She found herself grinning back. "That goes without saying."

-- -- --

_I swore I'd never do it again, but I guess you could call this a continuation of "Hello, Beastie" and my pet crackfic bunny: Jack-Sparrow-is-a-Copper-Islander. How soon did you spot it?_


	7. Eight Seconds

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammy-drabbles, prompt #87 "The longest of my life."

**"Eight Seconds"**

_Evin goes for the longest ride of his life._

-- -- --

It started innocently enough. A stablehand's warning, "I don't think he's quite all that broke yet" doesn't hold up to much when Commander Tourakom tells one of her Riders that a mount needs to be ridden. Orders are orders, and daylight's a-wasting. The pony was perfectly well behaved to begin with. He stood like a gentleman while being brushed, declined to suck in his belly when the girth was tightened, and politely took the bit when bridled.

Evin should have known something was up when the beast stood stock still as he stuck his toe in the stirrup and fairly imitated the statue in the market square while he swung up and found his other stirrup iron. The real problem—or at least what he assumed to be—came when he pressed his heels to the pony's sides.

No response.

A stronger application of pressure, more of a demanding squeeze. With encouraging voice commands.

No response.

A solid six-year-old-child-on-a-stubborn-old-pony rib-popping heel-bruising kick, followed by a whack on the rump and language no six year old child would know.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Well, that would be incorrect. What did occur was a shifting of weight on the pony's part, a lowering of the head, and a half dozen other minute changes that had Evin bracing himself for misbehavior of the equine variety. Quite methodically, the pony stuck out a leg, stretched out his neck, and vigorously rubbed the side of his face against his knee.

"You little shit," Evin growled, reclaiming his reins and wishing he'd brought a riding crop with him. Or maybe spurs.

The pony flicked an ear back.

"Yeah, you heard me right." Kick, kick, kick. Boot heels like a drum against the pony's slab hard sides. Thump, thump, thump. "You…" Kick, whack. "Little…" Kick, kick, kick. "Sh—oh shit!"

The pony exploded. Metaphorically, of course.

With a tremendous squeal, his head went down and his hindquarters went up. The reins were jerked through Evin's fingers with the first duck of the pony's head, the kicking back legs quickly following to pitch him forward in the saddle. His feet lost the stirrups as the pony heaved himself skywards—an incredible feat from a near standstill. His only saving grace was the athletic series of crow hops that tossed him back the direction he had come from. He grabbed desperately for a hunk of mane, clinging with his knees, calves, thighs, anything and everything, while the pony ricocheted first one direction, then the other, bucking so hard that the breath came from his nose in gusty, angry snorts and his back hooves hung suspended above his head when all four hooves weren't actively airborne.

Evin didn't get the sense that this was anything beyond ordinary misbehavior until the moment he realized the pony had been in possession of the upper hand the entire time. This thought didn't occur to him until the whitewashed fence line blurred and bounced its way into his vision with startling proximity. The pony let loose its most terrific buck yet and with one deft, calculated twist of the shoulders, effectively parted ways with his rider.

Evin experienced a brief moment of arms-outstretched head-first flailing before catching the top rail with his stomach. With a faint noise somewhere between a moan and a grunt, he flipped over the fence and collapsed on the other side with the wind knocked out of his lungs.

When he could breathe again, he found Onua and Daine peering down at him with mixed expressions of concern and amusement.

"You know, in some parts of the world they do that for fun," the Horsemistress told him, holding out a hand and hoisting him to his feet.

He promptly braced himself up against the fence and stared at her. "You mean there are nitwits out there who voluntarily get on the back of a horse they know is going to toss them off?"

"What do you think?" Onua asked, ignoring his incredulity and turning to Daine. "He lasted longer than most."

The younger woman was grinning. "A whole eight seconds, at least. Very impressive."

"That was the longest eight seconds of my _life_! You could have at least given a man some warning."

Onua laughed. "And deprive ourselves of the entertainment? You were doomed from the start, bucko. No amount of magic could've saved your backside the moment you dropped it in that saddle."

Evin looked back at the pony. The little bugger was trotting in meandering circles, stirrup irons bouncing and reins dangling, tail flagged and clearly pleased with his freedom.

Disgusted, Evin pushed himself away from the fence with some effort. "I hate you all," he declared and limped away. His horse-speaking wildmagic-wielding ex-friends could deal with _that_ pony instead. He had a lecture to deliver to his Commander.

-- -- --


	8. Miscount

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LJ community tammy-drabbles, prompt #99, "99."

**"Miscount"**

_Somewhere, somehow, the numbers got misinterpreted._

--- --- ---

"Just how many trainees are you expecting to recruit, exactly?"

"The usual lot. Why?"

"You better come look at this."

"Holy mother of mountains, moons, and mares!"

"Ehh, at least half are geldings. And I think that chestnut over there is a stallion."

"But, but…how?"

"You made the order, it was delivered to the royal treasury, and apparently the royal treasury approved the delivery of the order."

"Of how many?!"

"Well, I'm no expert in the administrative—"

"A straight answer, Larse—now!"

"There's ninety nine."

"_What the blazes are we going to do with ninety nine new ponies?_"

--- --- ---


	9. Indigo

**Author's Notes:** Written for the Goldenlake drabble prompt #1, "colour."

**"Indigo"**

_Miri struggles with horsemen's vocabulary._

--- --- ---

She didn't care what Daine had told her—that pony definitely was not blue. Miri was fairly certain she knew what blue was. The crystalline turquoise of a calm sea, the stormy grayish hues of a coastal hurricane, the pale sky reflected in shallow tidepools, and the sharp monochrome contrast of the horizon.

So what in the Wave Walker's name was a blue roan?

She squinted at the pony's coat while the fellow rooted about her hands and pockets for the apples she had been armed with. Just as she suspected, not a hint of blue. Only a uniform black, shading from the head and legs with generous flecks of white hair that gave the impression of one solid color from a distance. Perhaps if she stood in the right light, squinted her eyes, and tilted her head it would make sense.

All she managed to discover was the beginnings of a headache.

In the end, she acquiesced to the higher authority. Considering she barely knew what to call all the body parts of her newly acquired mount, what color he was became the least of her worries. When asked what name she had bestowed on the pony, it was the second thought to come to mind that she gave in answer: Indigo.

She just couldn't bring herself to name him something so trite as Blue.

--- --- ---


End file.
